Too Many Trophies

I put up shelves about 12 inches from the ceiling around as much of the bedroom as possible to display my daughter's stuff. It's still visible, but not in the way!

This isn't a formal solution as I'm still trying to figure this out, but in the meantime, each kid's trophies are stuffed in different pockets of a shoe bag hanging on the inside of their closet doors. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

I had this problem as a child too. I had a lot of different trophies and medals. Some of them were important to me, others were more 'participation' items (like from the Y). Consequently, some I decided to save and display in my room because I was proud of my accomplishment and worked hard for them. Others I didn't care about.

I'd say talk to your kids about it. Find out which ones are most important to them and help them display them on a high shelf in their rooms. The other ones you can take pictures of and they can write down what it was from, and why it's important to them. They can even wear the shirt/uniform or you can put it in the pic next to the item if you like. That way they can each have a scrapbook for current and future accomplishments. That's really nice to look back on later...their own handwriting, why it was important to them at that time, etc. without "losing" that memory.

As far as what to do witht the trophies. See if a local awards shop will recycle them.

Photo collage for the wall, and box the actual trophies for storage in the attic.

I would put a shelf up in their room and display only the "important" trophies. Take pictures of the others, create a collage of the pictures, or make a scrapbook.

I'm sure the other moms that participate in the same sports as your sons have the same problem You may ask them what they do, and see if anyone mentions a place in your area where they can be recycled.

My son is a gymnastics state champion. I only display the current season in the living room and the rest are stored in a 25 gallon tote in the shed. I'll drop them off at his house one day when he is an adult!

I would discuss this with your kids. If these trophies are important to them they need to be involved in deciding what to do with them. They may have some good ideas of their own.

If they have a bookcase each child could display their trophies on a shelf. The trophies could be quite close together and the child would be able to see them and feel proud.

My aunt put shelving up along the top of her bedroom to store her books. If you paint the shelving the same color as the wall it looks quite neat. This could also be done for trophies.

Make them like art and tack them up in a row along the tippy top of their walls in their rooms???

You can always post them on www.freecycle.org. It's a FREE site where people post their junk which may be another person's treasure. Maybe they can be used for seniors or for someone who might be an artist. The site is real easy to use after you create a log in. It's kinda fun too to check out other people's junk, LOL.

without knowing how old your kids are, that's a tough call. If they are all out on their own & they don't want to take their trophies, call a local place that makes the trophies and recycle them. If however, your kids are still at home, get three large totes, lable each tote with their names and put the trophies in there. Put them in the attic or garage for storage. Key is, once they move out, they have to take them with. :)

In my town there is a recycle place called Leftover's were people can donate ANYTHING (almost). That way things stay out of landfills, maybe look to see if you have anything like this in your town.

We just decluttered my son's room. Trophies were the big issue. We decided with my son to keep any that he earned (by winning something). All the rest we simply asked him, "where did you get this one?" If he couldn't answer specifically then we discussed whether or not it was necessary to keep it. He got rid of all his participation trophies on his own.

Not sure how old your kids are but you could do what my mom did. When I moved out every time I came for a visit she would hand me a packed box of my stuff to take with me. She got her closet cleaned, I got my stuff out of there which most of it I ended up junking!

My daughter was a baton twirler and had many contests each year with the possibility of bringing 5 to 10 trophies home each competition. We put them all out every year, and before the next season started we packed up all trophies except the extremely important (to her) trophies and she put them on display in her room. She eventually went through all the trophies and kept the ones that were most important to her. We donated trophies back to the baton team - who later used the trophies for other events - all they needed was a new plate on the front.

I would call the trophy store and see if you can donate those tropies, but only if the kids are okay with it.

Yes it annoys me that kids get trophies just for signing up in the league these days, lol....."participation trophies". I could see how that'd get pretty cluttered really fast with 3 children. I really like the idea of taking a photo of the child with their uniform on holding the trophy to put in a scrapbook to commemorate the event, but being just a page in a book instead of a bunch of trophies. I bought a long shelf from Lowes that we put up high in my son's room for the nice books that we read to him (he can have the normal everyday books on his toybox, but there's some that are beautiful, or collectable for seasonal reading or for when he's older, some special gifts from international trips, things like that)...you could do that shelf idea for trophies. If your children DO want their trophies right now, I'd rotate them out. Have a box for each child and when the trophies get a year old or replaced by a new year's worth of trophies, the older ones go in the box and into the attic. It's not cluttering up the place, but they're still around for sentimental value. Since it's their time, memories, and effort, I do believe they should have a say in whether something gets thrown away or just put away for them to take later to their own home.